Release Date:	January 22, 2008
	Platform:	Nintendo DS
	Genre:	Mini-Sports
	Developer:	SEGA
	Publisher:	SEGA
	MSRB Rating:	E (Everyone)
	Price:	$35.00

Wow!! Long time mascot rivals Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog finally appear together in a video game. zZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz. I mean really, Olympic Games? Could you please pick a less exciting event? And Beijing? What the hell is Beijing? If I can’t place it on a map than it’s worthless; and there’s a lot of shit I can’t place on a map.

The games starts off having you believe you just made the greatest purchase of your life by pretending to be Mario Kart DS (a champion among ball stomping DS games). The interface tries so hard to copy Mario Kart down to the blue checkered backgrounds and glossy right aligned menus; even the font is identical. It’s as if Sega has an uncreative quota to meet. Just when you think it couldn’t get any less original you’re slammed in the face with concept art that was developed a year ago for New Super Mario Bros. Still, the announcer is so overly enthusiastic it’s hard not to get excited about what’s to come. This guy could hype the color brown; he could make a 10 page essay seem fun. Coincidentally, after playing through this game a solid critical lens doesn’t sound like a half bad idea.

A cautionary note: This game loves to auto-save and will at any given opportunity. Don’t click any unnecessary buttons. Don’t adjust the options. Don’t look away from the screen. Don’t look AT the screen. Stand at least 50 feet away at all times. No sudden movements. No other kinds of movements. You’ve been warned…

As you might expect Mario and Sonic aren’t the only characters to show up. Mario brings his usual gang. Waluigi and Daisy continue their quest to be the most anonymous generic filler characters in video game history. Unfortunately Donkey Kong wasn’t invited because monkeys aren’t allowed to participate in the Olympics; only humans, hedgehogs, alligators, dragon monsters and dinosaurs. Sonic brings Tails, Knuckles and a bunch of NOBODIES...Shadow has one terrible game, Blaze looks like a lame fan fiction character, who the hell is Amy, FUCK Eggman and “Vector” is just Crunch from Diddy Kong Racing. The characters are divided up into 4 different specialized categories based on their stats. Each one of these categories is geared towards specific sports; immediately removing any skill or challenge from the game.

There are 8 different kind of sports in the game (some have sub-games as well) ranging from athletics to archery and even table tennis. I would have liked to see some additional events like professional turning off your DS or national league writing hate mail to Sega but I’ll have to suffice with what’s here. I’ll give you guys the basic run down of each sport (except the unlockable ones because I’ll be damned if I’m going to play any of these sports for more than a few minutes).

Athletics: They put like 10 different events under this one category and I’m not sure why. The sprints and races are pretty basic but pretty awful. You have to slide your stylus back and forth across the touch screen to run. It’s impossible to win if you’re not Sonic and impossible to lose if you are. The long jump event is completely broken. You get a foul every time no matter what. Javelin throw is essentially the same thing as sprinting only at the end you huck that shit as far as you can. Hammer throw is unique because instead of sliding back and forth you slide in a circular pattern. Pick a power character or fail.

Aquatics: I chose peach for this expecting her to get naked but much to my dismay, she (as well as all the other characters) charge into that pool gung fucking ho. No time for proper attire; get your ass in that pool so that your sopping wet clothes can weigh 10,000 lbs. The event itself is just more stylus sliding with a breath gauge thrown in to piss you off.

Gymnastics: Bounce off a trampoline while performing midair tricks by rubbing the stylus in a series of directions. It’s nothing to go crazy over but it’s one of the more bearable events yet.

Archery: This is another one that manages to be on the border of mildly entertaining. Using the touch screen you pull back your bow; then use an aiming reticule to line up your shot on the target board. You have to take into account the sudden massive winds that blow in from random directions and sporadically change. Of course these winds only exist during archery. Never mind the fact that it takes place on the same field as most of the other events. If there’s one thing Mother Nature can’t stand, its fucking archery.

Table Tennis: This is the slowest, most inaccurate and unresponsive game of ping pong I’ve ever experienced. If you’re interested in this shit look into “Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis”. Even the version included in Wii Play or the arcade version of Pong is better than this dilatory disaster. If I didn’t hate this game already Table Tennis would have clinched it.

Fencing: I would put this game in the better half of the sports mainly because it doesn’t just require you to grind the stylus into your touch screen. My only gripe would be the AI. It can come in one of two difficulties; “fluffy bunny” easy or “raging volcano” hard. A middle ground would have been nice. The announcer picks up the most convincing French accent I’ve ever heard, which leads me to believe this “Beijing” must be in France.

Shooting: To give you a quick idea, Bowser holding a gun is as high on the badass scale as this event is on the boring repetitious dogshit scale.

Cycling: This one is ok if you can ignore its obvious downfalls. You alternate between the left and right shoulder buttons as quickly as you can to pedal the bike. You can pick up hearts to upgrade your stamina or sneak a boost off your opponent’s tail. It’s clucky as hell but at least it’s not Table Tennis.

That’s pretty much the majority of this game. It’s just another mini-game compilation. Only this mini-game compilation has ultra-mini-games(?) too. If you go into the gallery you’ll find a small handful of even more boring exercises. It’s your classic ring collecting, card matching, shit sorting snoozefest. You’ve seen it 100 times on DS before and you don’t want to read about it again.

Overall the audio isn’t bad; there just needs to be more of it. The game pumps out 7 different remixes of the same theme and after a while you kinda don’t want to hear it anymore. That’s not nearly as bad as the voice work though. Sega recorded ONE line for each character and it keeps playing over and over again. Imagine hearing Daisy’s ear-shattering shriek every time she jumps a hurdle, whacks a ball or fires a gun. Then the game will have you play the event 3 or 4 times in a row for no reason other than to make sure she gets her point across (her point being: “WWIEEEE-HUUU!!!”).

Verdict: If you have to get this, get the Wii version.

You know, as if playing it wasn’t bad enough you get an instant replay after every fucking thing you do. You can’t scratch your ass without getting the play-by-play highlights. It’s pointless cumbersome bullshit like this that sets Sega apart from respectable developers. Nintendo should have known better then to trust it’s most loveable and popular mascot to the people responsible for all the recent 3D Sonic games. The day Sega stops embarrassing itself and drops out of the industry for good will be the greatest day of my life. For those of you who want to some real Mario and Sonic action; wait until Super Smash Bros Brawl comes out (also the greatest day of my life).